[open] not by fire, yet forged in flame;

[Viszla]

Myrna suffocate the fire  i started-------------------- right when it kindles The aspen tree is content. The sun is warm, and the soil is rich, and the air is gentle. All is as it should be, and in that moment of perfection… she is shaken awake. Myrna’s dreaming mind slips into a different shape as she stirs, surprised to find it already midday. She has slept late, the mare realizes, and then an echoing sound (the thing that had awoken her, perhaps?) comes again. A broad winged raptor land on a nearby branch, and she stills. The palomino is not yet fully awake, and for a moment she holds her breath. Is it the black bird, the herald of her father’s arrival? No, she realizes, quickly blinking the sleep from her blue-grey eyes, it is some other kind, more colorful than the midnight black osprey she’d expected. It landed in the same direction those noises had come from, and then the sound of a raised voice sounds from between her and the bird. It’s coming from far too close, and as Myrna lowers her golden head she realizes she can see the dark shape of another horse down the wooded slope. She considers slipping away, but the bird will surely see her if she tries. The hook of the beak is enough for her to guess that the eyes are equally sharp. Well, if they’ll realize she’s here, she might as well do her best to make it not weird. Without knowing what she might be intruding on and who this stranger is, she decides to investigate the sound. She can’t see much of the other horse, and as she rounds a low rocky outcropping, she realizes its because he stands at the mouth of a dark cave. Her attention is drawn to the pattern on his chest. It is the same as the bird’s, she confirms, glancing again and noting the buzzard’d sharp talons, and then back at the stallion, choosing to stop a good distance away. Yet despite that obvious display of caution, there is a faint smile on her face as she meets the stallion’s golden eyes and asks: “So are you twins, or is one of you copying the other?” Having grown up mimicking the many shapes her family wore, that prospect seems most likely, but as she waits for a reply she muses that perhaps they’d gotten on the wrong side of a magician. @Judas